Monday, July 20, 2009

MoM - Apple Muffins

Apple Muffins - yield 12 muffins. When we bought our house a few years back we discovered we own an apple tree! Very cool to watch them grow each year that's for sure! Although technically the apples are free (although it would be cheaper to buy apples than pay my mortgage I guess) I still hate to see them wasted. It took me a few years but I've finally found a great muffin recipe - maybe I'll sell them in my yard sales this year - cha-ching!

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
1 1/2 cups peeled chopped apples
Topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat oven to 400`

Line muffin tin with paper liners, or grease.

Cream together sugar and butter. Add egg and beat well. Stir in milk.
In another bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder and spices.
Add egg mixture to flour mixture and blend until just moistened. (Batter will be lumpy.)
Add apples to batter and blend carefully.

Fill muffin cups and sprinkle each one with a little of the brown sugar/cinnamon mixture.

Bake 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.

*Disclaimer - this is not my recipe, I found it in a book we borrowed from the library called Apple Farmer Annie!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

well it was bound to happen!

Lorelei got into my lipstick today - she's over three so I guess I've had a pretty good run! Thing of it is though I never wear makeup - the only reason this was in the drawer is because I used my "wedding/funeral" purse last week and it was in the bottom.

Luckily she came out to show me before chasing her siblings down with it!

Monday, July 13, 2009

MoM - Spiced Nectarine Muffins

Spiced Nectarine Muffins - yield 12 muffins. Since food prices started skyrocketing last year and my kids all started eating real food, I've been doing more and more of shopping our grocery shopping at Club type stores. A few weeks back I discovered all 3 kids like nectarines so I skipped off to the local BJ's and bought a container. Of course later that week 2 out of 3 of them decided they no longer liked them. What's a mom to do!? I didn't want them to go to waste so I googled "Nectarine Muffins" - here's what I found. It was great - I even got the above mentioned 2 to eat them. ;) I've never added the pecans because I don't have them on-hand, but I'm sure they are great that way too!

1 1/2 cups diced ripe nectarines (bout 3 nectarines) peeled
2 tsp lemon juice
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)
2 tsp sugar mixed with 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Heat oven to 400`
Toss chopped nectarines with lemon juice and set aside.

Line muffin tin with paper liners, or grease.

Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, 1 tsp cinnamon and salt in a large bowl, break up the clumps of brown sugar.
In another bowl, whisk together butter, milk and egg **be sure to add the butter to the milk first or else you'll have scrambled eggs!** Stir milk mixture into the dry ingredients and blend until moistened. Fold in nectarines and pecans (if using).

Fill muffin cups and sprinkle each one with a little of the sugar/cinnamon mixture.

Bake 20-25 minutes. Cool about 3 minutes in pan then remove to cool completely.

*Disclaimer - this is not my recipe, I found it when googling for muffin recipes myself!

Monday, July 6, 2009

MoM - Banana Nut Muffins

A new week a new muffin!

Banana Nut Muffins - yield 12 muffins. I just can't seem to buy the right amount of banana's! Either we run out mid week or there is 3 or 4 left turning brown before we get to them. Here's what I do with the brown ones (Oh and you can freeze bananas and thaw them out for this!)

2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup mashed banana (usually about 2 bananas)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Heat oven to 400`

Grease muffin pan.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl; make a well in center.
Mix milk, egg, oil, banana and walnuts in a small bowl. Pour mixture into well.
Mix batter just until moistened; do not overmix.

Spoon batter into greased muffin cups.

Bake until toothpick comes out clean and muffins are golden brown, about 15 minutes

*Disclaimer - this is not my recipe, I found it when googling for muffin recipes myself!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Letter(s) of the week - S, T, U, V

I am really falling behind on these posts! We have still been doing out projects - fewer and fewer pictures though now that Sadie and John are participating because they need more help and it's just me.

Here's the last month's worth of projects - enjoy!

Under the "S"ea(horse)!
These were so much fun! It took me a while to get something that even resembled an actual seahorse though - you'll notice the difference in shape on each, I got better the more I did.



Go hug a "T"ree!
These didn't come out exactly as I hoped - but everyone knew they were trees so that's all that really mattered.



Time for an "U"mbrella!
This one was so fitting seeing how it's been raining in my neck of the woods for almost a month straight - and I don't live in Seattle! I gave everyone a blue, green and brown crayon for the background colors, Lorelei made sand, grass and sky all in the correct places on the paper! I was so proud of her. Everyone loved adding on the little rain drops. John was super excited about this one and pointed to the fridge all week saying "brel-brel".



"V" is for "V"ase!
I was so happy to see this project on the blog I visit just before we got to letter "V" because I had no idea what I was going to do. There's not much that starts with V that my kids are going to recognize!